Houston businesswoman rejects plea deal in case involving a New York congressman

A Houston businesswoman has rejected prosecutors’ efforts to get her to testify against Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., in exchange for a deal on the campaign fundraising charges against her, setting the stage for a trial in Brooklyn, N.Y., according to her lawyer.

Attorney Stuart Kaplan said federal prosecutors were expected to seek a new indictment against Diana Durand, after cancellation of a scheduled court appearance on Monday to discuss the status of plea negotiations.

“The court date was canceled since we couldn’t agree on any plea deal,” Kaplan told the Houston Chronicle. “Ms. Durand is committed to exercising her constitutional right to go to trial.”

Diana Durand (NY Daily News)

Kaplan said Justice Department prosecutors have been “trying to selectively twist her arm or to target her because they believe it will help the government’s case” against Grimm.

Grimm is a second-term conservative Republican congressman from Staten Island who came to national attention in January after threatening to throw a reporter off a Capitol Hill balcony. He had become angry when the reporter asked him about the status of an apparent corruption investigation.

“I think they’re trying to get her to cough up something that just doesn’t exist,” Kaplan said in a telephone interview.

Robert Nardoza, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, said Durand faced a statutory maximum of eight years in federal prison if convicted on three campaign-finance charges in a criminal complaint filed last August.

Prosecutors “really have no comment on the case because it’s pending,” Nardoza said.

The Justice Department official also declined comment on any possible link between the charges against Durand and her possible testimony against Grimm.

Durand, an executive with RelaDyne, an Ohio-based company that distributes lubricants and fueling products, allegedly coordinated more than $10,000 in donations to Grimm’s first congressional campaign in 2010 by using so-called “straw donors,” including foreign nationals, in addition to donating the $4,800 maximum herself.

Durand also faces charges of illegally donating $4,800 to another congressman and lying to FBI agents about the donations in a June 2012 interview.

Durand denies any wrongdoing. She remains free on $50,000 bond. Her lawyer said she was “unsophisticated and inexperienced” about fundraising. “She was just trying to help this guy out who she was in a relationship with — nothing more, nothing less.”

Grimm was facing campaign-finance challenges in 2010, having raised only $925,231 by mid-October compared to the $2.5 million war chest amassed by then-U.S. Rep. Michael McMahon, D-N.Y. Grimm went on to defeat McMahon in 2010 and win re-election in 2012.

Grimm, a former FBI agent who served undercover, continues to face investigations by both the Justice Department and the House Ethics Committee into allegations that he solicited and accepted banned contributions from foreign donors during his maiden 2010 congressional campaign.

Grimm’s attorney, William McGinley, said he had no comment on developments in Durand’s case.